In 1973, there were approximately one million, two hundred thirteen thousand (1,213,000) small boats, which would have a length of less than sixty-five (65) feet, in Canada and the United States as determined by the United States Coast Guard and State Marine Registries that have inboard engines. The present invention is designed to be used with these small boats having inboard engines, to remove the oil from the bilge water and other water that is discharged overboard by the boats to prevent pollution of the environment.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) prohibits the discharge of oil or hazardous substances into the waters of the United States. This prohibition is stated in terms: "discharge" includes spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, or dumping; and "oil" means any kind of oil in any form, including fuel oil, gasoline, lubricating oil, and oil mixed with water in a vessel's bilge. The United States Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency Standards states that oil has been discharged in a harmful quantity if it causes a visible shinning rainbow or discoloration of the surface of the water.
At the present time, boats with inboard engines commonly have bilges that collect water, fuel oil, gasoline, and lubricating oil. For safety purposes, a bilge pump is operated to pump this mixture overboard prior to starting of the engine, and during operation of the engine, the bilge pump is periodically operated to further remove the combination of bilge water and oil. Commonly, this will result in the discharge of a harmful quantity of oil as determined by the above standards.
One way that has been suggested to meet the above standards is to provide a holding tank within the boat, into which the bilge water and oil is pumped during operation of the boat, so that upon docking, the bilge water with oil will be pumped to an onshore system. For safety reasons, the bilge water and oil must be removed from the engine compartment in some manner during operation and during start-up of the engine to prevent explosions and fires.
Large oil, water separaters have been provided for large ships, but the size and cost of these systems generally prohibit their use on small recreational boats and small commercial boats of the type described above. Further, such systems are mainly concerned with recovering bulk oil and not with removing small quantities of oil, so that they would no doubt be incapable of meeting the above standards. Further, such systems could not operate with a conventional small boat bilge pump, because such pumps are extremely sensitive to back pressure and the pumps would fail to start-up, so that their associated motors would quickly burn out and a general failure of the system would result. Bilge pumps for small boats are manufactured to pump a volume of liquid within the range of three hundred (300) gallons per hour to one thousand four hundred (1,400) gallons per hour. Normally, there is one pump for each boat, depending upon the size of the boat and the compartmentation of the bilge-ballast area. These bilge pumps are commonly used with small boats having inboard engines, which include the following types: inboard, houseboat, inboard-out drive, yacht, and commercial.